Word: kingdoms
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...operation against Saddam Hussein, prompting the U.S. military to begin planning around them. Anti-Saudi hawks hope that once the U.S. installs a friendly regime in Iraq--the Administration says it is still merely considering such a plan--Washington will end its alliance with the kingdom, its oil and bases no longer critical to U.S. interests. "If we sort out Iraq and Detroit develops a hydrogen engine," says a U.S. diplomat, "Saudi Arabia will go back to being a fascinating, benighted part of the world that people don't visit...
Isolating Riyadh, though, carries risks. Western diplomats warn that the al-Saud clan, which has ruled the kingdom for the past century, is the only Western-leaning institution left in a fundamentalist state that is growing younger, poorer and more radical. "Let's say we decided to split sheets with the Saudis. What would replace them would not be a pretty sight," says a U.S. diplomat. "You could see another Taliban. There's no moderate group that could come in and take over...
...births for every 1,000 people--is among the highest in the world. Because of falling oil revenues and the country's spiraling debt, per capita income has plummeted from $28,600 to $6,800 in the past 20 years. Though one-third of all Saudis are unemployed, the kingdom imports 6 million foreign workers to fill the low-wage jobs Saudis don't want. Restive and jobless young Saudis have nowhere to turn in an antidemocratic society governed by puritanical social norms: Saudi authorities ban dance clubs and movie theaters, forbid women to drive and prohibit men and women...
Islam is central to the identity of the Saudi state, whose influence in the Muslim world is based on its stewardship of Mecca and Medina, the two holiest cities in Islam. The al-Saud family has held on to power by placating the kingdom's religious establishment, which is dominated by descendants of the 18th century Muslim cleric Mohammed bin Abdul Wahhab. To defuse the religious leaders' hostility to modernization, the Sauds gave the Wahhabists broad power to dispense their forbidding brand of Islam in the country's mosques and schools and to regulate daily life in the kingdom. During...
...rich ally. As early as Sept. 24, Bush declared "the Saudi Arabians have been nothing but cooperative." Counterterrorism officials in Washington and Riyadh say they have worked closely together to liquidate al-Qaeda. According to U.S. officials, the Saudis have arrested more than 100 al-Qaeda members inside the kingdom, given American investigators access to interrogations of terrorism suspects and shared reams of intelligence on the Taliban and bin Laden's network...